Tuesday, 3 July 2018

I don’t know why I feel so compelled
to write about WAYWARD SISTERS after
all this time. I guess because even now it’s still bugging the hell out of me
for a number of reasons. So here are my thoughts on why I think it went wrong
and missed its chance to become an excellent show I personally would have loved
to watch. I remember getting quite excited when I heard about the plans for a female-headlined
SUPERNATURAL spin-off. I thought it
was a really good idea – if done right. I also thought, back then, that it
would center around Jody and Donna – two very different but enjoyable characters,
who have some hunting experience, and who, I believed, would make a very good
team, hunting monsters and saving people – like Sam and Dean or Bobby and Rufus
– while bringing their own unique ways in the process. I was definitely looking
forward to that.

However, what it turned out
to be was 95% of unnecessary family drama (I’m sorry but haven’t we seen it all
before?) and only 5% of fighting actual supernatural monsters – and even that
part was so insipid that I’m not at all surprised that the show wasn’t picked
in the end. The fact of the matter is that it simply failed to deliver what it
was supposed to deliver as a SUPERNATURAL
spin-off. If you have to ask – no, it was not supposed to deliver an episode
heavily based on maudlin family drama, revolving around same old issues that in
one form or another have been plaguing the original show since the very
beginning, and that have been resolved to a certain extent and with varying
degrees of success in the course of its long run. So that was the first big
problem that I had with WAYWARD SISTERS:
too much drama and very little actual plot.

The second problem for me was
that the writers chose one of the most controversial, problematic, and not
always sympathetic recurring characters to make their lead and pin their meager
I-have-to-save-Sam-and-Dean plot on. Personally, I can’t help feeling that the
writers painted themselves into a corner with Claire’s character, because every
time there appears to be a slim chance of her further development and
improvement, they snatch it away and push her back into a
troubled-teenager-with-messed-up-past box – bizarrely, they also chose to make
that tangled web of parental issues, frustration, insecurity, arrogance and
devil-may-care attitude the central plotline of the pilot, which took a lot of
screen time and utterly failed to bring anything remotely new or original to
the show.

The third problem for me was
the unnecessary overpopulation of old and new characters who had virtually
nothing to do other than watch Claire and Jody butt heads, and, from time to
time, when the occasion required, run around, pointing guns and shooting when
in sight of otherworldly creatures. Unfortunately, such characters as Donna and
Alex became little more than a background noise, supporting characters at best,
pushed aside for the sake of the newcomers. But did we really need another
psychic or a dream-walker-slash-messed-up-kid thrown into the mix? I believe it
would have made for a much more solid story if the writers concentrated their
efforts on the smaller number of characters, that we have already come to know
and love and invest in, and provided them with meaning and substance through a
well-devised plot rather than extreme cardio workout. After all, the quantity
of the characters doesn’t make for the quality of the story.

I also find it ironic that
on SUPERNATURAL it has been stressed
again and again and again and again that hunting life is not the kind of life that
you choose or encourage anyone to take up. I mean, there has always been so
much talk about Sam’s chance at going to college and having a normal life or
Mary’s ardent wish for a normal life with her husband and kids. Apparently,
that’s no longer the case in WAYWARD
SISTERS. Here we have a bright young girl (Patience) with a bright future
ahead of her and instead of leaving her be to have that future she is pushed
into hunting life because of her abilities – that, when you think about it,
could be just as easily used for good in some other way. How come she doesn’t deserve
a chance at normal? How did hunting suddenly become a job that you actually encourage
young girls to take up rather than an obscure and dangerous lifestyle that people
are forced into because of loss, revenge and other supernaturally-effected circumstances
and that, in fact, should be avoided at all costs?

Finally, another big problem
of mine with the pilot was that ridiculous “rescue mission” that constituted
the rest of the plot. I don’t think that the notion of Sam and Dean being
rescued by women (or teenage girls, in this case) is unbelievable or ridiculous.
It was the writing that made it so. By choosing to provide comic effect for
entertainment’s sake when first introducing the boys – I’m sure I wasn’t the
only one who thought that Sam and Dean couldn’t look less like two people in
need of saving – the writers failed to represent their situation as truly dangerous
and convince the audience that they were in horrible predicament to justify
that contrived plot of theirs. Moreover, by choosing to disregard their
extensive experience, skills and abilities, including excellent intuition and
sense of direction, they did their characters a great disservice by suggesting
that they wouldn’t be able to find a way out on their own.

If you need to manipulate characters
and their capabilities by degrading them in order to fit your plot and to make
someone else look better by comparison, then maybe you’re just not good at your
job. Incidentally, it reflected poorly on the rescue party, completely subverting
their efforts, at least in my eyes, because you can’t make someone look truly strong
by deliberately weakening someone else and then, adding insult to injury,
condescendingly make it miraculously easy for the girls to find and rescue the
boys – before the inevitable tragedy struck. I’m sorry but that was an example
of lazy, sloppy and self-complacent writing of someone totally lacking in any
new ideas or imagination and going about it with all the finesse of a hatchet. I
guess if your purpose is to push through the show that you seem to be more interested
in than the current one you’re working on, then that’s how you would go about
it… unfortunately, that’s the impression that I got.

But what made the whole
thing even more unconvincing was the fact that Sam and Dean had spent over a
day in that place without either finding their way back or being attacked by
anyone or anything, making it look to all intents and purposes as though it was
just a picnic gone slightly wrong – and it wasn’t until Claire and Kaia were finally
on their way to save them that Sam and Dean ended up in any danger at all. It
doesn’t look like a very well thought out plot to me; more like a water balloon
– prick it with a pin and there will be nothing left but a lot of water to mop
up. I’m not even going to mention that instant bond and blind devotion between
Claire and Kaia – forced, far-fetched and overused as pretty much everything
else within this episode.

Yet that wasn’t even the
most ridiculous part. I guess the prize goes to that one-person ambush that had
both Sam and Dean down in less than a minute, bound and ready to be served for
dinner. I’m sorry but I really have to ask: is this some kind of game that
these writers play, where they decide whether to increase or decrease the
capabilities of the characters, depending on the circumstances that they put
them in?

In the end, I would have
preferred to watch the pilot without the boys in it at all rather than have
them shamelessly used as a hook for those who would have certain reservations
about watching a proposed spin-off pilot without them in it. Let’s face it: their
characters were used solely for comic relief and treated as nothing more than a
feeble plot device to showcase that girls can be heroes too. I know that they
can – but that was an unmitigated disappointment.

I wanted to see a
well-written story that would not employ tricks and gimmicks to achieve its end.
I wanted to see a story that would not use overblown and overused drama. I
wanted to see a story that would give each character a fair chance to show
themselves. I wanted to see a challenging, engaging, scary and compelling story
about kick-ass women who use their wits, skills, expertise, resources, and
humour against the supernatural, and who save someone actually in need of
saving.

To conclude, the problem with
WAYWARD SISTERS for me was that I
didn’t see a SUPERNATURAL spin-off in
all of that. I blame the writing and the chosen subject matter. I mostly saw a
whole load of trite teenage drama complete with tantrums, constant bids for
freedom and even diary-writing. Surely there is enough of that on TV these
days. So who really needs another such show and quite unoriginal at that?